Handgun seized in Belltown under extreme risk protection order

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Seattle police this week pre-emptively seized a firearm from a person considered an extreme risk under a new law.

On Thursday, police served an extreme risk protection order on a 31 year-old man in Belltown, requiring him to turn over all his firearms. The man had multiple incidents of harassment, including while armed, and had previously failed to comply with a judge’s order to surrender his guns as part of a criminal case, according to police. When he failed to appear for a court hearing, police got a warrant, confronted him outside his apartment and seized a .25 caliber handgun inside.

“He was harassing and threatening some of his neighbors, and the behavior had been escalating,” said Seattle police Detective Patrick Michaud, a department spokesman.

Extreme risk protection orders were created by Initiative 1491, which overwhelmingly approved by voters in 2016 and enacted last year. It authorized law enforcement, families and others to petition for removal of firearms from a person deemed a danger to themselves or others. The so-called “red flag” laws – also place in California, Oregon, Indiana and Connecticut – are now being considered in 24 other states following the mass shooting at Parkland, Fla., high school, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Jonathan Martin: 206-464-2605 or jmartin@seattletimes.com; on Twitter: @jmartin206. Jonathan Martin is an assistant metro editor responsible for coverage of homelessness. He has been a reporter, editorial writer and columnist covering social services, politics, prisons and marijuana since joining the Seattle Times in 2002.